Articles 06.2006

"The hard bargaining during the forming of the parliamentary coalition by the Ukrainian elite shows that our neighbor country is surviving a serious social, economic and political crisis which has a tendency to aggravation... Currently, a decline of the independent Ukraines international prestige and its transformation into an object and instrument of the politics of other geopolitical players (the US, EU, NATO, Turkey, Poland) is highly possible. Ukraine is an important geostrategic bridgehead, a country linking the West and the East, Europe and Russia, but also a country plagued by internal divisions..."

"On June 22 NATO forces maneuvered near the shore of the island of Cape Verde, located off the western cost of Africa. This operation was the highlight of the Steadfast Jaguar NATO exercises which were carried out on June 15-28, 2006 in Cape Verde and demonstrated NATO’s new "Reaction Force"... NATO says that one of the priorities of the exercise is the protection of the communications used to transport energy resources from Africa to Europe. Observers stress that the demonstration of the NATO potential takes place at the time of the African tour of China’s Prime Minister Wen Jibao. This coincidence and several recent diplomatic moves of the US (including the restoration of diplomatic ties with Libya) are often interpreted in the context of the intensifying competition between the US and China for African energy resources..."

"There is a consensus in the US Administration concerning the fact that the national missile defense and the militarization of space are to become important instruments of the US global leadership and of the Pax Americana, which is the US-centered model of the world order. Obviously G. Bush considers the missile defense as a part of his “historic mission of struggle against the global evil” The US Republican Administration’s foreign strategy relies on the force component neglecting the norms and the institutions of international law..."

A new country emerged in the Balkans as a result of a referendum in Montenegro. The outcome of the referendum was easy to predict. This show was staged perfectly... The break-up of the space of the Orthodox Slavic civilization continues. As much land as possible is separated from the historically Slavic territories. The red light is on for the inverse process - the unification of Slavic lands is always made impossible.

"Washingtons top priority in the South Caucasus is a parallel involvement of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia into NATO (or into the ⌠greater Europe). However Karabakh is an obstacle in the way of this plan. This is the reason why Washington persistently attempts to manage a breakthrough in the settlement of the Karabakh problem till the end of 2006 actively mediating between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The incorporation of the entire Transcaucasus into the NATO security system will mean an end to the Russian military presence in Armenia. In this case the politics of Erevan and Baku in regard to Russia will be similar to that of Tbilisi..."

"The Transdnistria-Moldova conflict is obviously entering a new phase and acquiring a new quality.The Kosovo precedent and the recent one of Montenegro have become a major factor determining the geopolitics strategy of Transdnistria as well as of all the other unrecognized post-Soviet states. These formations struggle for independence has got a clear form and now refers to the present-day experience in addition to the historical one..."

Even if we accept that there was a plausible military imperative to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – to bring about a swift defeat of Japan and thus an end to the Pacific War – the horror of civilian death toll from those two no-warning aerial attacks places a disturbing question over the supposed ends justifying the means...